This chapter is a notice!

Despite looking forwards to this part of the story more than anything, I was reluctant to type this chapter. My hands were burnt with a solder iron and the healing process was and is still; slow. As is at this moment, It's decided to be wise by forming a hard shell which I can't touch or let anything else touch, or it causes pain. I've managed to type chapters for other stories because they feature shorter, simpler chapters, but I've been hesitant for this story. This one I wanted to be top for. Now I see I can't wait that long...

So. I've decided to throw quota out the window. Never mind length, at least not until I get everything up and straight. Do you know I did it again and tried to lift something that broke apart in my hands, getting cut up again? This year seems to have the motto: "Hurt the Finalage."

Anyway what does this mean? It means you'll get updates faster after I give you this one, at least for now, but they will be much shorter...Mini chapters~

I've been experimenting with some new formatting ways in other stories, but you'll notice a very small amount of change here. I find it somewhat hilarious, but also a good sign that over eight years after joining this site officially after lurking, I still am changing and updating my style of writing.

~C.F Winchester

~Lemongrass Stains: Recette's Annual.

Chapter Thirteen: Bye

I look at her with some surprise as she looks back at me from above.

Recette stood on the balcony of her home, looking out at the setting sun. She was dressed for what I could only describe as anything. She had long calf length boots of dark leather with studded bolts on the toe, they were strapped up to the top and had heavy rubber soles. Her threaded pants were tucked into them, and they were of similar color. She wore a long deep mauve blouse under a slightly shorter apron, both were belted with a thick belt that held her full sheaths and a few bags of supplies. A long deep colored jerkin that fell to the knees was tossed over this, and it had a knotted hood that was at the moment tossed off. Her deep blue scarf was tied loosely about her neck, looking almost black in this light, and it flew free. Her face was set as she looked back up to the sunrise. She seemed to be absentminded at the moment, because she was muttering under her breath, almost as if...

I turned away. Obviously she was saying goodbye. I hear a sound, and turn back to see her boot resting on the edge of the banister on her balcony. I look up at her a bit worried.

"Hey, uhh...aren't we running a it late? Shouldn't you uhhh- Ahh!"

Recette had bounded the barrier and jumped off, soaring out and down to land on her hands and feet; crouched but unharmed. I ogle her. The heck was that for? She almost gave me a heart attack! I swallow and once again the thought about this person in front of me not quite being real crossed my mind. Recette straightened up with a grin.

"I always did want to leave like an action hero through a window or balcony."

...Was she serious?

She sobered as she walked towards me.

"So. Are we walking all the way?"

Yep. She was nuts. Walk all the way? I thought again about the way she had just leapt off the balcony and amended my thought, okay, perhaps not crazy. SHE might have the stamina required to walk all the way, but her? No. I sighed.

"No, I need to get to the inn keeper and cancel my room, pay my fees and request horses...and get my luggage too..I can't keep wearing the same suit everyday...washed or not."

She nodded, but made no other response. Instead, she went to touch a building with her hands, and I noticed she was wearing fingerless gloves. She seemed to be sharing something profound with it. I screwed up my mouth and cleared my throat. She turned to look at me, and her eyes flashed in the dying light.

"Which way?"

I pointed down the street, towards the richer part of town. She nodded.

"May we stop somewhere else along the way? I need to do something."

"Like what?"

"Say goodbye."

I blinked. I followed her as she went up the street, occasionally touching a building in passing. She walked towards the patch of land I had seen earlier, where I had collected that single, ripe tomato. She bent and opened one of her pouches, pulling a bone colored disk from it and dropping it into a hole that she had kicked with one of her boots. She pushed it in and then buried it.

She straightened and left the patch of dirt, walking on to pass a burnt down Chapel, here too, she bent by the altar, seemingly in prayer. I watched her from afar. Finally, she walked past me and by the bridge, she took a left to verge off it, and walked a while before she knelt where I realized, with a start, that there was a string of stone markers along the bank.

Graves. I licked my lips, but said nothing as she knelt and reached under her blouse, pulling a necklace out from under it. I had never seen her with that...but I guess it usually would be worn just like she was now, under a blouse. I looked at it.

It was instantly obvious to me that even though it shone gold, it was not all gold. It was probably mixed with copper, it did not have the purity I was used to seeing. It was a small heart that was ringed by tiny rubies, with a larger lapis-lazul like gem in the middle. She dug a small hole in front of the marker she was next to, and then buried it there. She slowly covered it with dirt before standing up fully and without a word walking away towards me. Her face was drawn. She looked at me briefly before glancing back once.

"We can go now. I'm done."

As we walked away, I could have sworn I heard her mutter something, it was low and mixed with an emotion I couldn't place...but I could swear that what she had said was:

"Goodbye...Louie."

We walked in silence for a while, until we met the bridge and crossed it. The difference was terrible. Again my mind played with how rigid and perfect the line was drawn. Recette looked back only once...ad in the middle of the bridge, she reached and unhooked the pouch she had drawn the bone disk from earlier. Without comment, she tossed it into the water, where it instantly sunk. Apparently there was still something in it. I watched it sink.

"What...?"

Recette however, kept right on walking, and passed me. She looked back, and I saw the desolate landscape reflected in her eyes.

"I don't need it anymore..."

Turning, she walked quietly into the rude divide of poor and rich, leaving the charred, honest earth behind, and stepping unto the polished and deceptive one. She did not halt her stride.

Neither did I.

+~E~+

Well, I'm sorry for the half month wait for this short one, but It will speed up from now with these short ones.

~Finalage